Even with the slow start, the Ferris State University men’s bas­ket­ball team came back from a 12 point half time deficit to blow out the Wildcats of Northern Michigan University.

After Thursday’s tough loss against Michigan Tech, the Bulldogs faced adver­sity after the first 20 min­utes of action against NMU. After Trailing 37–25 going into half time, it was time to make adjustments.

“As a team we have really come together, our effort, inten­sity and the way our team shares the ball has really been great lately,” FSU fresh­man guard Drew Lehman said, who added a game-high 23 points to pro­pel the Bulldogs to victory.

The sec­ond half proved to be very promis­ing for the Bulldogs as the team defense really stepped up as the Wildcats were outscored by a 44–18 mar­gin. NMU man­aged only four made field goals and shot a woe­ful 20 per­cent in the sec­ond half.

The Bulldogs led the major­ity of the sta­tis­tics for this game. Senior FSU for­ward Jerrell Sanders led the game with 10 total rebounds. Another con­vinc­ing mark for FSU was the bench points as the Bulldog reserves outscored the Wildcats by a mar­gin of 31–4.

Other Bulldog con­trib­u­tors included a 13-point per­for­mance by junior guard Kenny Brown and a 12-point per­for­mance by senior guard Dontae Molden. Molden along with Sanders and Lehman all earned three assists to lead the contest.

“This win felt really good, espe­cially com­ing off of the loss against [Michigan] Tech,” Lehman said. “It was def­i­nitely excit­ing to get a vic­tory and keep pace in the GLIAC North.”

With the vic­tory, FSU improved to a 7–3 con­fer­ence record with a 10–7 record over­all and the Bulldogs regained a tie at the top of the GLIAC North Division with Michigan Tech University.

“The goal is to win the GLIAC North Division,” Lehman con­tin­ued. “After that we want to win the GLIAC tournament.”

The Bulldogs are more than half way done with the sea­son and are sit­ting in a good place to make a run for the divi­sion, as the Bulldogs now go onto a five game home stretch against the likes of 3–7 Lake Superior State University, 2–7 Lake Erie Community College and 5–5 Grand Valley State University.

The Bulldogs believe they have all the mak­ings of win­ning the divi­sion and hope the play of late con­tin­ues and even­tu­ally turns into a GLIAC North title.